War Of Honor

Of course, the prosthesis did provide a few unusual advantages. For one thing, it was several times more powerful than natural flesh and bone. There were limits to what she could do with that strength, because her shoulder had been undamaged when she lost her arm, and the natural limitations of that joint dictated how much stress she could exert. But the fact that "her" left arm was far stronger than any arm had any business being was dramatically—one might almost have said gruesomely—evident when the back of the training remote's "skull" deformed under the force of her blow and the entire head flopped forward in a disturbingly realistic representation of a snapped neck.

The remote collapsed onto its front, and Honor slumped across it, her breathing harsh and ragged in the suddenly silent gym. No one moved, and White Haven glanced across to where Andrew LaFollet and Simon Mattingly had stood watching their Steadholder.

Their expressions were not reassuring. Remotes like Honor's were rare. That was primarily due to their expense, but it also reflected the fact that they could be dangerous. In fact, they could be deadly. Like Honor's prosthetic arm, their maximum strength was far greater than that of any human, even a genetically-modified heavy-worlder like Honor Harrington, and their reflexes were much faster. Any training remote came equipped with governors and software inhibitors intended to protect the user, but it was ultimately the responsibility of the person training against one of them to determine its actual settings. More than one human being had been seriously injured, or even killed, as a consequence. No remote had ever "gone berserk," but they performed precisely as their owners instructed them to, and sometimes those owners made mistakes when they specified performance levels.

It was obvious from LaFollet's worried expression that the Grayson thought Honor was approaching precisely that mistake. Given the fact that, unlike White Haven, LaFollet was also a practitioner of coup de vitesse —that he regularly sparred with Honor, in fact—the armsman was certainly in a position to judge, and the earl swallowed a bitter mental curse as he watched Honor push herself pantingly back up on her knees, and then stand.

He'd known for years, since the day they first met at Yeltsin's Star, that Honor Harrington's temper was lethal. People seldom saw it, and he also knew that the calm and serenity she normally projected were just as real as her temper. Yet it was there, chained and subordinated by duty and compassion, perhaps, but without losing one bit of its power. And sometimes it frayed its leash. There were stories about the times it had almost slipped free, part of the legend which had grown up around "the Salamander," but that temper was almost never a match for the discipline and strength of will which restrained it.

Almost . . . but not always. He'd known that, too, but this was the first time he'd ever seen her deliberately free it. That was why LaFollet was worried, and why the "sparring bout" had ended only in the "death" of the remote, and the earl winced again at the recognition of how much pain it must have taken to drive her to that state.

She stood gazing down at the crumpled remote for several seconds, then drew a deep breath, straightened her shoulders, and looked up at LaFollet. She peeled off her sparring gloves, removed her protective mouthpiece, and nodded to him, and the armsman nodded back, obviously trying to conceal his relief, as he pressed buttons on a hand unit. The training remote stirred, then rose and walked off the mat with mechanical calm, completely unaffected by its recent demise, and Honor watched it go. Then she turned and looked at White Haven.

She showed no surprise at seeing him. She must have known he was there, sensed his emotions, from the moment he entered the gym. He smiled at her, but it was a crooked, half-bitter smile, wise with the knowledge of how badly they'd hurt one another without ever meaning to.

He hadn't realized for a long time that she could actually feel the emotions of those around her. It wasn't really his fault he hadn't, because so far as he was aware, no other human had ever shared the treecats' empathic sense. But once he'd begun to guess the truth, preposterous though that truth had seemed, he'd wondered how he'd ever failed to realize. It explained so much about her unca

And who can do that for her? Who can give back even a little of all she gives to everyone else? he wondered bitterly. Not me. All I can do is make it still worse by sitting here radiating how much I love her when that's the very thing ripping both of us apart.

Somehow, even after he'd begun to suspect the truth, he'd managed to avoid facing its inevitable implications. Of course she knew how he felt about her. She'd always known, and it had been that knowledge which had driven her away to the squadron command which had landed her on Hades as a POW and nearly killed her. And now he knew the complete reason she'd run away. Because she'd not only sensed his emotions but shared them. And so while he'd thought he was suffering in such noble, splendid isolation by concealing his love for her, she'd been bearing the burden of knowing exactly how they both felt.

Her expression wavered for just a moment before she smiled at him, and he kicked himself mentally. Beating himself up for feeling what he felt and for "inflicting" it upon her did neither of them any good. Nor was it his fault. He knew both those things, yet the knowing changed neither his emotions nor his guilt and frustration for inundating her with them . . . which only made all of them worse.

"Hamish," she said, and her soprano was husky. A large, dark bruise was rising on her right cheek, and her upper lip was swollen. He didn't much care for the way she favored her right side, either, but she only held out her flesh and blood hand to him, and he took it in his and kissed it. It was no longer the simple, adopted Grayson courtesy it had been, and both of them knew it, and he wondered miserably what they were going to do.

"Honor," he said in reply as he released her hand.

Nimitz and Samantha leapt down from their perches and came pattering across the gym towards them, but he scarcely noticed. His attention was fixed on Honor.

"To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?" she asked in a very nearly normal voice, and he produced a smile which he knew fooled neither of them.

And would I really want it to? Hard as this is, painful as I know it is for her, there's still something wonderful about it. About knowing that she knows exactly how much I love her, no matter how much it's cost us both. And how much it's cost Emily.

The thought of his wife reminded him why he was here . . . and why he'd come in person, rather than screening her. Why he'd deliberately arranged to make her feel his emotions. Something flickered in her eyes, and his mouth quirked with wry bitterness as he saw her recognition. At least it was only emotions, and not thoughts, he reminded himself.

"I come bearing an invitation," he said, much more lightly than he felt. Nimitz and Samantha arrived while he was speaking, and Honor bent to scoop Nimitz up without ever taking her eyes from White Haven's face. She straightened, cradling the 'cat in her arms.

"An invitation?" she repeated, and he felt a fresh flicker of pain at the wariness in her voice.

"Not from me," he hastened to reassure her, and then chuckled humorlessly. "The last thing you and I need right now is to give the scandalmongers more ammunition!"

"True," she agreed, and smiled with a flash of what might have been genuine amusement. But the smile disappeared almost as quickly as it had come, and she cocked her head at him. "If not from you, then from whom?" she asked, and he drew a deep breath.